U.K. 7 MAY 2015 GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS 
A note by Eamon Henry. Date 15^th May 2015

Numerical results below are taken from Wikipedia, with two sets of calculations by the author, namely Table 1 column 3 party percentage shares of total number of votes, and column 5 derived number of seats pro rata party percentage shares of total number of votes. The total turnout of 66.1 percent of the total electorate may be considered rather low, for such an important expected outcome of no party majority, although in fact a Conservative overall majority resulted.

Table 1 Main Results by Party, with derived percentages and proportional seat numbers

Party          (1)	Votes, number        (2)	Votes, party percentage of total   (3)	Seats, number, actual      (4)	Seats, number pro rata col. 3 percent share of votes (5)
Conservative	11,334,920	36.932	331	240
Labour	9,344,328	30.446	232	198
U.K. Ind. Party	3,881,129	12.646	1	82
Lib. Dem.	2,415,888	7.871	8	51
Scottish Nat. P.	1,454, 436	4.739	56	31
Green	1,157, 613	3.772	1	25
Dem. Union. P.	184,260	0.600	8	4
Plaid Cymru	181,694	0.592	3	4
Sinn Fein	176,232	0.574	4	4
Ulster Union. P..	114,935	0.374	2	2
Soc Dem.& L. P.	99,809	0.325	3	2
Others	346,436	1.129	1	7
TOTAL	30,691,680	100.000	650	650

We see that the Conservative actual 331 seats far exceeded their warranted 240 seats based on party vote share. Likewise, Labour’s 232 seats exceeded their warranted 198 seats. U.K.I.P. ‘s getting nearly 4 million votes, for only 1 actual seat versus warranted 82 seats, might argue a need for some different election system , as an improvement on that in place. The same argument could be made for the Lib. Dem. (8 actual versus 51 warranted) and Green (1 actual versus 25 warranted). In the other direction, the Scottish Nat. Party actual 56 seats far exceeded their warranted 31 seats based on vote number shares.

This writer proposes a more equitable outcome, as follows. Combine the present 650 constituencies by adjoining pairs into 325 constituencies, and elect 325 M.P.s as at present. Then subtract out the votes (total or some high share) obtained by these 325 winners, and combine all the remaining votes into a national total, subdivided by party. Then allocate the remaining 325 seats pro rata party shares. In this situation U.K. I.P. would certainly obtain many more seats than just the 1 now obtained, and Lib. Dem. would also obtain more. In an arguably  better sense, no votes would be wasted. The writer thinks that a voting system along these lines already exists, possibly in Germany, or in some other European countries.